Sunday, July 31, 2016

So many wish to lead their lives as if God will not judge us at the end of days. They either pretend that the day of judgement is not real; or convince themselves, or allow others to convince them, that it it is not. But we know it is real for Christ spoke of it often and warned us against it. His warning is a true gift from God; for if we heed it and live our lives knowing that we will die and be judged according to how we have loved God then how much greater is the chance that we will be saved. But we must remember that we show our love by obedience to God's will. For as Christ told us, there are many who say 'Lord, Lord' who will not be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Friday, July 29, 2016

And they were scandalized in his regard. But Jesus said to them: A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.

Matthew 13. 57

ReflectionThose who do not wish to hear God's truth may grasp at any excuse for the deafness they choose. Some would not hear Christ, claiming they knew him; and if you speak out some may do likewise. Do not let this silence you; knowing they will not hear does not justify refusing to speak.

May
my words be in the Name of the Holy & Undivided Trinity: +
Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Gospel reading today includes some of the most well known verses in all of
Sacred Scripture – well known, of course, because most of us learn
them off by heart as children. I speak, of course, of what we call
the 'Lord's Prayer' – so called because it was given to us by our
Lord himself – or the 'Our Father' after the first two words; which
is why it was known at the Pater Noster for so many centuries in the
Western or Latin Church, those being the first two words of the
prayer in Latin. We have two versions of this prayer: the longer and
more familiar one in St Matthew; and the shorter one that we hear
today from St Luke.

The
riches and the beauty of this prayer are inexhaustible. You may
recall that I preached a sermon series on it over the course of
Advent a couple of years ago; and in ten sermons I think I barely
scratched the surface of its wonders. But that is hardly surprising –
great saints and Fathers of the Church have been exploring its
wonders from the earliest days … Saint Cyprian of Carthage, for
example, wrote a marvellous treatise on it in the third century …
and this exploration on the part of the faithful continues to this
day. So what might be said of it in the context of a single sermon,
something that is of necessity quite brief? Well today, I think we
might take three lessons from it, not directly from the prayer
itself, but from the manner in which it is introduced by St Luke.

First,
let us note what is happening before our Lord bestows this great gift
upon his people. He is himself praying. One of his disciples
approaches him. And he asks our Lord that he teach his followers to
pray just as St John the Baptist taught his followers to pray. And
our Lord begins by saying: 'When you pray … '

This
brings us to the first of my three thoughts. The phrase 'when you
pray' expresses an expectation of our Lord that his followers would
pray. Of course he did; he uses the phrase 'when you pray' elsewhere
in the gospels; he gives us his own example of prayer on many
occasions to his disciples, who are called to be as Christ-like as
possible in every way; the expectation that his followers would pray
is in keeping with the many commandments to prayer in the Old
Testament, whose continuing authority when it came to the moral law
our Lord affirmed; and that this is the right interpretation of what
our Lord intended to convey by his words, that those who follow him
should be a people of prayer, is shown by the lives of his apostles
and disciples in the generation after his Ascension and of all
generations since. Prayer is an integral part of the Christian life.

And
that it should be so is not simply because it is something that God
asks of us – although, that in itself should be enough. No it is
part of our nature that we should wish to pray. This brings me to my
second point. Recall how it is the disciple who approaches our Lord
and asks him that he teach those who follow him to pray. The man
reaches out to the Messiah with this request, because it is only
natural that we, created beings, should desire that we hold
conversation with, in other words pray, the one who created us. We
are his children; and the child, by his very nature, wishes to speak
with his Father. And consider this also: we are created in his image
and likeness; and the Son, once made made, prayed to the Father.
Christ is the perfect man; and if he teaches us by his example of the
necessity and goodness of prayer, then we ought to understand that
prayer is something we need as much as the very air we breathe or the
food we eat … things that were also given to us by our Father in
heaven to sustain us during our sojourn on this earth.

Finally,
note the manner in which the disciple asks the question of our Lord:
teach us to pray as St John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray.
There is nothing wrong from seeking guidance on prayer from someone
who is in spiritual authority over you; indeed, it is a good thing,
demonstrating as it does the all important Christian virtue of
humility. Accepting that there are things that we can learn from
others – and that there are those that God has given greater gifts
in certain areas – is a fundamental part of what it is to be a
Christian. As St Paul taught, together we are the body of Christ; but
God has given various gifts to various members for the good of all.
Some are called to be apostles, others preachers, others teachers.
This is a great gift to us from God; and it would be foolish indeed,
not to say spiritually dangerous, to allow a proud spirit to cause us
to reject what God has given us for our benefit – that is, to say,
the salvation of our souls.

The
salvation of souls is, of course, the first law of the Church. This
is why our Lord taught his disciples to pray – that they might
follow the path to their own salvation and be better equipped to help
others along that path. The salvation of souls was the reason our
Lord came into this world and why he was willing to suffer and die –
so that we might be saved. Prayer is a powerful, and precious, and
wonderful gift to us from God, given us that we might learn his laws,
live them in our lives, and in the end attain the eternal life we we
were created for. And today it is my prayer that you will not reject
or neglect that gift … neither today, nor in the days that follow,
persevering in prayer until the moment you draw your final breath.
Amen

Saturday, July 23, 2016

If you were to stand before the Heavenly Throne a few minutes from now, what would your fate be - would the Lord judge you to be among the wheat or the tares? Ponder this matter with great soberness; and take time over the task. Consider each of the commandments in turn and what the Church teaches of how they are to be obeyed. Are you indeed obedient to them? Answer this honestly without making excuses. Objectively judge yourself – have you followed what you have been taught in relation to each? If you cannot in truth say that you have, remember the fate of the tares. Ask God's pardon for the failures of the past and his grace to do better for what remains of you life; giving thanks that you have been afforded the time to begin afresh the task of living a life that is pleasing to him.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

May
my words be in the Name of the Holy & Undivided Trinity: +
Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. Amen.

There
is a story told of Queen Victoria, most likely apocryphal, that it
was once told about an order of enclosed nuns. It was explained to
her that they spent their lives secluded from the world in order that
they might spend their time in constant prayer. The great queen
pondered this idea for some moments before remarking 'But could not
something useful be found for them to do?' The
quote, true or not, illustrates the all too common but unfortunate
notion that prayer is not useful in itself and is something to be
engaged in once all other, more important, useful work has been done.

I
was reminded of it while considering today's Gospel, the well-known
passage where the Jesus has gone to the home of Lazarus. His two
sisters are there, Mary and Martha. Martha is doing all the 'useful'
work that needed to be done to entertain a guest. St Luke does not
tell us what it is, but we can imagine that she is getting food ready
for our Lord and the disciples who are with him. Mary chooses a
different path; she instead sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to
what he is saying. Again St Luke does not tell us what our Lord is
saying, but to sit at someone's feet is indicative of the master and
student relationship, so it is safe to assume that Jesus is engaged
in teaching those who have gathered around him as all wait for the
meal to be served.

Martha,
we are told, is distracted by her many tasks. Of course she is; she
suddenly has a great many unexpected guests in her house. And we know
from elsewhere in the Gospels that Lazarus and his family were
devoted followers of Jesus. So not just guests, but honoured guests.
To have our Lord under their roof makes it a special occasion, which
means there is even more to do than usual. And in the middle of all
this busy-ness Martha notices that her sister is not helping her –
she is lounging around, sitting down at her ease, while Martha is
doing all the work on her own.

So
she is not pleased with her sister. And also it would seem from the
text she is not altogether well pleased with our Lord either. For
when she decides to do something about the situation she does not
quietly enter the room and whisper in her sister's ear that she would
appreciate it if she would come into the kitchen and help. No, she
goes to the Lord, St Luke tells us; so we can imagine her bustling
in, red-faced from the heat of the cooking fire, and stands before
him. And interrupting his teaching she says:‘Lord,
do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by
myself? Tell her then to help me.’
Consider well what she is saying here. She doesn't say 'Lord, can you
not see?' but 'Lord, do you not care?' It would seem then that she
thinks it obvious what is going on, that her sister is neglecting her
duties and leaving all the work to her, and she charges our Lord with
being uncaring about the situation. And then she commands Jesus to
correct the situation 'Tell
her then to help me.'

Now
we may pardon, I think, Martha's attempt at rebuking the Second
Person of the Blessed Trinity and trying to tell him what to do. She
would not at this time have understood that he was God incarnate. But
as one his close followers she would have known that he was indeed
the Messiah; which means that she should have realised, harassed
though she might have felt by the pressure she was under, that the
way she was speaking to our Lord was more than a little
inappropriate. So we can imagine the gasp of amazement that would
have come from the mouths of all present at the occasion. But Jesus
is unperturbed; and he responds to her outburst with gentleness and
understanding. 'Martha,
Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need
of only one thing.Mary
has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.’

Now,
we must be careful to understand that Jesus is not denigrating the
work that Martha is doing. Work is important; the necessity of honest
labour is made clear in the Bible – as St Paul tells us, those who
do not work shall not eat! And Christ, by his constant references to
the work of fishermen, farmers, shepherds and others might well be
said to have emphasised the dignity of labour and sanctified it. So
the work that Martha is doing is good – but through her busy-ness
she has missed something better. For by it she has missed the
opportunity to spend time with the Lord.

The issue is not about
whether whether work is somehow in competition with our devotional
life of prayer, scripture reading, and worship; it is about balance
and understanding where the priority lies. The time we give to God is
not some kind of an afterthought, nice if you can find time to do in
the midst of a busy schedule, at the bottom of a list of more
important things, such as spending a extra hour at work, or watching
the latest episode or your favourite TV show. No, it is the heart and
soul of your day, the good portion, the better part around which all
things must fit in. And it makes abundant sense that it must be so:
for the rest are only the things of this life, things that will be
left behind, while the other helps prepare you for eternal life in
the next. I pray that all here will be like Mary and always choose
the better part.
Amen

Christians are called to speak the truth in love. This means we share the fullness of the truth of the Gospel message with all. This sharing does not entail hectoring or berating; and it does not mean hating, excluding, or belittling those who having heard will not believe. There is no love in that; and such unloving behaviour can only make it harder for them to accept the Gospel at some later time. But this love can never mean altering or watering down the faith in any way, for what is shared must be the fullness of the truth. For just as love calls us to share the Gospel, it calls us to share the full truth of it. To do otherwise is not love for it denies the one who hears the full truth.

Friday, July 15, 2016

The horror of what happened in Nice yesterday is staggering. Families out enjoying a national holiday are mowed down by a previously ordinary seeming young man driving a truck. Men, women, and children chosen for no other reason than they were gathered together to enjoy the day and were a soft target, completely defenseless ... and that the randomness and scale of the attack would only serve to make it more appalling.This is terrorism in its purest form. Everything is a weapon. Everyone is a target. And it is almost impossible to predict who the perpetrator may be and protect oneself from his or her evil actions. Please pray for the victims, the dead and the injured, and those who love them; and all those in the emergency services who have deal with close quarters with such shocking things. Pray also for those tempted to commit such atrocities that they will be given the strength to resist. And pray for us all, that we will not be overwhelmed by such evil.

The Sabbath was instituted by God as one of the Ten Commandments. How foolish then are those who try to say he was only a good man who made no divine claims, for who is Lord of the Sabbath other than God himself?

Thursday, July 14, 2016

'Take my yoke upon you, & learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, & you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, & my burden is light."

Matthew 11. 29,30

Reflection

The burdens the world lay upon us seem light; but they equip us for a false path and great is their final cost. Though at times the cost of discipleship may seem greater, it is not; for it sets us on the true path, the one that leads to the infinite reward of heaven.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

"I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes.'

Matthew 11.25

Reflection:

There are those who are too proud of what they consider their own wisdom to heed the word of God. But their wisdom is folly and leads to the grave. But it is those who are humble of heart that are truly wise, for from their humility flows obedience to God.

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

"Woe to you, Beth-saida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago.'

Matthew 11.21

Reflection

Jesus speaks here to condemn a place that had witnessed his mighty acts and yet refused to repent. He warned that things would not go well for them at the final judgement; and his warning applies also to those who will not repent today.

Monday, July 11, 2016

'He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.'

Matthew 10. 37

Reflection

This teaching may sound hard, but it is not. We must love God; and we must love our parents and children. The love of one does not stand in opposition to the other; it is simply a matter which comes first.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Christians are called to be citizens of heaven. This means we live in the world but our first loyalty is to the Kingdom of God. We must, of course, be good and law-abiding citizens of this earth – in fact we should be the best of all citizens, the kind that others should be inspired to model themselves on. But that does not mean we can ever let ourselves forget our citizenship of heaven; or ever relax even for a moment our duty to live by God's Holy Laws. And if the laws of man and the laws of God come into conflict then we must put God's first. This does not make us bad members of the secular society; in fact it makes us the best. For all law comes from God; and where man's law does not follow God's then it is of necessity a bad and evil law. And the Christian who acts to correct it serves not only God but his fellow man as well.

Saturday, July 9, 2016

'And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.' Matthew 10.28

Reflection

How much we worry about those with power in this world; we tremble even at the idea they may hold a poor opinion of us. And all the while we forget something of far greater importance – the judgement of Almighty God which all must one day face.

Friday, July 8, 2016

'You will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.' Matthew 10.22

Reflection

Christ's words were true in his time and they remain true today. Think of how the spirit of the world constantly attacks the faith and tries to get it to conform to its ways. But we must resist; for we are called not to please men but God.

Thursday, July 7, 2016

While we are in Windsor for the Clergy Consultation we are worshiping in St George's Chapel. We sit in the choir for morning and evening prayer (in the stalls belonging to the members of the Order of the Garter). I was fascinated to discover that buried in the aisle of the Choir lay the mortal remains of King Henry VIII.

More fascinating still is the fact that until 1837 his resting place remained unmarked. He had a great tomb prepared for himself long before he died, ready to be assembled once the time came. But not one of his three children who followed him to the throne saw fit to erect it. Edward, of course, died young. Mary always hated that her father had divorced her mother to marry Anne Boleyn; and Elizabeth was the daughter of Anne whom he had beheaded. So perhaps one can understand their neglect.

The place where the body of the king lay was lost to memory and was only rediscovered by accident at the time of the beheading of Charles I while they were looking for a place to inter his remains. When the vault where Henry lay was discovered, it was decided to place the remains of his martyred successor to the throne there also.

The Roundheads didn't want Charles' grave to become a place of pilgrimage so when the vault was re-sealed it remained unmarked and it again became uncertain where it lay. It wasn't for another century and a half that it was decided to seek it out again - not because of an interest in Henry, but in Charles. So the vault was sought out; and its location having been ascertained, it was finally marked by William IV in 1837. So his grave remained unmarked, with no one sure of its exact location from his death in 1547 until then.

It is an interesting footnote, for me at least, that the man who sparked the English Reformation in pursuit of his 'great matter' spent so many years in an unmarked grave. And perhaps an even greater irony that he shares his final resting place with a martyred king that many Anglicans regard as a saint.

'And if any one will not receive you or listen to your words … truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgement for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.' Matthew 10. 14, 15

Reflection

God offers his Grace to all. Rejecting it is a free and deliberate act of the human will. And those who do so will not be held blameless for their actions on the final day.

Sunday, July 3, 2016

May
my words be in the Name of Almighty God: Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Amen.

In our Gospel reading today our Lord says something that has always
intrigued me - 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.' To
remind you of the context … he has sent out 70 of his followers two
by two to the towns and villages he plans to preach to prepare the
way for where he plans to go to himself shortly. And he has given the
men he sent authority – not just to preach, but also to heal and to
exorcise evil spirits. And when the men return, they are joyful for
they have experienced for themselves the great power of God, for they
have found that even the demons, those minions of the Evil One, are
subject to them in the name of their Lord, Jesus Christ. And it is
when they are rejoicing that he tells them he saw Satan fall from
heaven.

Now,
this is a mysterious phrase that has caused people to ponder down
through the ages. What exactly does our Lord mean – is he speaking
metaphorically or literally? The Church Fathers have tended toward
the literal, while more modern scholars lean to a metaphorical
explanation. Myself, I tend to put more faith in the opinion of the
Fathers – both in general and in particular in relation to what
Jesus says here. But let us consider the possibilities.

If
Jesus is speaking metaphorically, it could be taken to mean that he
is praising his disciples … they have gone out into the world,
preaching the Good News and casting out evil spirits in his Name.
They are doing God's work and the forces of darkness are being driven
back by it. It is as if Satan is being cast down by all they do.

But
if it was intended to be a metaphor, there is something wrong with
it, I think. For our Lord does not say he saw Satan driven back, but
cast down; and not cast down from some place of earthly power but
from heaven. And Satan, we know, was cast down from heaven long ago,
by God himself.

So
our Lord is talking literally here, of seeing Satan fall. But
when?There are two possibilities. Considering the first, his
disciples have just come back from the mission he sent them on; and
they tell him that they have been casting out demons in his Name.
Does he mean, then, that as they were out their in the towns,
villages, and country places, he could see Satan being thrown down as
a result? I do not think so for the reason I already mentioned –
that Satan was cast out of heaven long ago. Also, he says 'saw' –
past tense, as if it were an act that was completed … as if his men
by their work have defeated Satan in the world … and we know that
this is something that is manifestly not true … the powers of
darkness are at large in the world even today.

So
that leaves us with only one interpretation of what our Lord is
saying: he is making a statement of literal fact; he is saying he saw
Satan fall from heaven; he is saying he witnessed when Lucifer
attempted to rise up against the God of heaven and was cast out for
his unpardonable sin of thinking himself equal to the one who made
him and rebelling against him. He is saying he saw something that no
human eyes could have seen, for that rebellion in heaven took place
before the creation of man and his own Fall. It is, therefore, a
divine claim; for while no man could have seen it, the second person
of the Blessed Trinity, the Son, could. And so when Jesus stands
before his disciples as a man and tells them he saw Satan fall from
heaven he is telling them that he is himself God.

But
why does he choose to mention this to them on their return from their
mission? This is what has always intrigued me; and again, I think we
must look to context for the answer. They have returned from their
journey to the towns and others places where they have been sent –
and they are rejoicing that the demons have been forced to submit to
them in the name of Jesus. And Jesus it seems sees that there is a
danger that they will be seduced by the power of casting out demons,
of bending these evil spirits to their will, and think it more
important than the work of spreading the good news. For he says to
them after that they should not rejoice that the spirits are subject
to them, but rather that their names are written in heaven. Our Lord
sees they are at risk of being proud of the power he has given them,
and being glad of it for its own sake, rather than for what it
signifies – that they are obedient followers of Christ, and through
their faithfulness they will end in heaven. And so he reminds them of
Satan – the one who was proud, and as a result of his pride lost
heaven for all eternity – to warn them of the dangers that they
face.

For
pride is a very great danger indeed – so great that a person can
even be doing God's work in the world, but because they do so with a
prideful spirit, giving glory to themselves rather than to God that
they gain no benefit for their own souls for what they do, even if
all the world thinks them a great hero of the faith. It is in this
way that Satan can lead even holy people astray; which is why Christ
warns of the evil to be avoided, the evil of pride, the evil of
following in the devil's footsteps. Instead we must follow in those
of the Lord, and be meek and humble of heart. He will give you the
grace to do so; so that you may, as our Lord wishes for his disciples
and all who follow him, find that in the end your names are written
in heaven. Amen.

There are many today who deny the sinfulness of man. This a great and dangerous heresy: great because it denies the very words of Sacred Scripture that all are sinners and all have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3.23); and dangerous because those who do not think they are sinners do not think they are in need of forgiveness and thereby put their souls in mortal peril. Thrust the evil of this thinking from you; and rather repent and be saved.

And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Matthew 9.15

Reflection Jesus expected that his followers would fast. That is because disciplining the body is an excellent way of training the will and strengthening it to avoid sin. We must therefore fast because our Saviour recommended it as way to help save our souls.

Friday, July 1, 2016

“Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

Matthew 9.13

Reflection All of us are sinners. Reflect well on this the next time you try to excuse your own wrong-doings; for what you do not admit as sin you can not repent of; and what you do not repent of you can not be forgiven.

Ancient Faith Radio

tempus fugit! The time to repent is now!

Greek Orthodox Chant from Mount Athos - The Jesus Prayer

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The verses of Sacred Scripture for the daily Prayer Diary is from that day's Gospel reading for Holy Communion

'And do not be conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.'

The letter of the Apostle Paul to the Romans (12.2)

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About Me

Hi, I'm Paddy (the Rev Patrick G. Burke), a priest in the Church of Ireland. The title of the blog is from a description of me in a letter my grandmother wrote to my mother in 1965 when I was three! May God richly bless you and those whom you love today and everyday. Amen.